underworld's karl hyde interviewed

In today's LA Weekly I catch up with Karl Hyde of Underworld on the eve of the band's performance Saturday at the Hard Summer festival in Inglewood, California. He says the act is working on new RiverRun Project material that could lead to proper album release sometime next year.

He also makes mention of the new Underworld version of the iDrum iPhone app, which features 12 remixable songs from the duo.

Also, Hyde on why dance music embraced digital distribution early on: " ... There is something inherent in dance music, which comes from the making of 12-inches and dub plates and white labels and the dissemination of music through clubs and selling records yourself in specialty shops. It grew out of a very hands-on culture. Being able to publish your work when you felt like it, when the passion drove you, rather than being tied into the traditional and sometimes imprisoning system that used to exist when you signed to a record company - that's great. The culture of acid house and rave in the UK was more punk than punk. People with an idea just going and doing it. You could make records and put them out through friends and clubs. The internet is a natural extension to that."